What passes for journalism these days

I found this article on the front page of the online edition od the Deseret News. I'll sum it up for you:

Experts disagree about whether or not the snowpack amounts in the Rocky Mountains are decreasing. Somewhat unsurprisingly, the Sierra Club says they are decreasing, and blames global warming. The mayor of Salt Lake City agrees with them. No details are given to show the validity of either claim.

Props to the reporter for at least looking for someone to disagree with the mighty Sierra Club, which is something most reporters will not do. After all, the Sierra Club speaks Truth to Power, which we all know is something that journalists aspire to do in their finest moments.

But in essence, the facts left out speak more then the facts put in. Which expert is more credible? Was either claim peer reviewed for proper scientific and statistical analysis? What are the actual numbers involved?

Here's what we get from the article:

The Sierra Club's press release announcing the news conference says, "Utah's water supply is currently being threatened by warmer winters caused by global warming."
The study says that in the upper basins of four rivers studied — the Columbia, Missouri, Colorado and Rio Grande — human-caused climate change increased temperatures, caused more warming in the winter and spring and reducing the snowmelt.
Snowpack levels were below average in the Colorado River Basin for 11 of the past 16 years, it adds.

Does it seem obvious to ask how much lower than average those 11 years were? And if the other five years were significantly above average? Is it too hard to provide a statiscal analysis to determine a trend for 16 years, and is that even really enough? The opposing expert has 30 years of data. Isn't that a better sample size?

The article also says that this decline threatens the ski industry. So exactly how much less snow is too little to ski on?

I'm not a meteorologist, but I do know a few things: warmer weather means more moisture in the air (due to evaporation and the fact that air holds more moisture the warmer it gets), so how does this translate into drought? And if the winters are, say 5 degrees warmer than normal (and this is being rather generous, I think), then how many less days of potential snowfall are there, really?

The article is balanced in its ignorance, managing to give both sides of the argument without clarifying either.

The Blame Game

When viewing the aftermath of Katrina, we start thinking about whose fault it is. It seems to be human nature, and certainly embedded in current American culture. Things don't just happen. Someone has to be to blame. So let's consider some possibilities.

George Bush: he has to be considered, because so many are already blaming him for this. But honestly, no matter how bad a president you may think he is, he's one man, who cannot convince Congress to do what he wants, much less the weather.

Satan: according to Christian theology, Satan is the prince of the power of the air (Ephesians 2:1). If a hurricane does not demonstrate the power of the air, nothing does. So for the religious, Satan is a candidate. The proper response then would be to emulate Job.

God: I have heard a lot of talk already that this devastation was a result of New Orleans wickedness. That the city was decadent is beyond doubt. But did God punish them for it? I am not qualified or worthy to guess the mind of God in these matters. Perhaps he allowed Satan to wreak this havoc for His own Purposes. But again, it is prideful in the extreme to guess as to why. Read the whole book of Job.

Allah: Did the prayers of the jihadis bring this storm? Faith is a powerful force, for good and ill. I have no way of knowing if the combined faith of the jihadis is enough to influence Allah. But they have declared war on us, and promised to use every weapon at their disposal.

Fate: This is just as supernatural as the preceding three, but less personal. They don't call it fickle for nothing.

Chance: This is a more scientific (or objective) take on Fate. There are category 5 hurricanes, even though they are rare. The chances of one hitting America could be seen as a statistical certainty. Combine that with the propensity of Americans to build in those areas with the highest probability of being hit, and the conclusion is that a disaster like this was going to happen sometime in this century. Heck, it's likely to happen again in the next 50 years.

For myself, I can only credit the last cause. It was bound to happen, if not now, then later. It relieves nothing, and in fact increases our anxiety.

You mean that this can happen at any time, for no reason at all? Yes, Virginia, it can. But the remarkable thing about us is that we will get through it, restoring order and clearing the wreckage, and then, in the absence of another storm like Katrina, forget all the lessons within 25 years.

Update on the Great Utah Rave

Okay, so I haven't watched the video. So sue me. I do most of my surfing at work, so it hasn't been real convienient.

But I did visit the Sherriff Department's account of what happened. And a couple of things stand out (boldface mine):

Tickets were sold through a Salt Lake vendor, Uprock, for $20.00. Tickets could be bought in advance and directions to the exact location of the Rave would be provided on the day of the event.

From several previous experiences with Rave parties of this size, a large amount of drug use and underage consumption of alcohol occur. In addition reports of sexual assaults, overdoses, firearm violations, vehicle burglaries, and numerous individuals drive from the party under the influence of alcohol and or drugs.

Utah County Sheriff's Office Detectives interviewed several females that had attended a prior rave party in the Utah county area in the past month that had been sexual assaulted. These females stated that the combination of drugs and alcohol made them fear for their safety due to the groping and sexual assaults that occurred during the Rave party. In the last year alone one near fatal shooting was investigated by Utah County Sheriff's Office at a similar party.

Utah County Major Crimes was contacted to assist with undercover surveillance. Both local and state SWAT teams were called in to control the crowds ( Utah County Metro SWAT, Utah Department of Corrections out of Salt Lake and Gunnison, Department of Public Safety and their helicopter and Provo SWAT) approximately 90 law enforcement personnel combined.

At 9 pm the Rave party began and by 10 pm Major Crimes observed numerous illegal activities. Which included illegal use of drugs, distribution of drugs, and underage consumption of alcohol.

So we have law enforcement, faced with the experience that the illegal aspect of these parties is escalating, waiting until they had all the facts, including accounts from undercover agents, moving in in a way to minimize any possible problems, especially with illegal weapons.

Let's see, this is bad because people have a right to party?

Let's present this scenario: the police appear, in a small group, lightly armed and protected, and 250 people decide to rush them. If someone had been killed, or even seriously injured in the resulting chaos, don't you think that the police would be taking a ton of flak for not being better prepared?

So once again, the police are damned either way. Operate in a forceful way that protects more people than they harm and be called facist, or operate in a weak way that gets people hurt and killed and be accused of being too soft.

It's amazing that we haven't devolved into outright anarchy yet.

Perspective on the Utah rave

So I've read accounts and opinions from all over the blogosphere about the rave in Utah County, Utah. Most people are on the side of the ravers, or at least against the actions of the police involved, including the great Blogfather.

But there are always more things to consider than just the simple facts that 90 police in combat gear broke up a party of 250 peopl on private property.

First of all, there is a culural element that hasn't been mentioned much, but should. Utah county is very conservative, and very Mormon. It doesn't mean that an organized party can't happen, but calling it a rave conjures images of debauchery that go against the grain of the area that it was being held.

And despite all the Constitutional garuntees in the world, a community always sets its own standards. The result is that what might be ignored as inconsequential in California is scrutinized in Utah.

Utah has some pretty restrictive alcohol laws, too. So the two hour delay before halting the proceedings may have had something to do with the alcohol present, and how it was being served.

These things will be worked out in court, I'm sure.

But the fact remains that the word rave, like so many words in our culture, has a connotation that we react to. If you want to advertise your party as such, then people are going to react to it differently than if you advertise it as an ice cream social. People will show up, looking for different types of entertainment. One gets more scrutiny from the law, no matter how much illegal activity happens at either.

And when you call your party a rave in a place like Utah, well, it's an invitation for that scrutiny. Like holding a church revival meeting across from ACLU headquarters.

For my three regular (or irregular) readers

Sorry about the light posting recently. Not much has piqued my interest, at least not enough to rant about. And the general intrusion of real life has slowed me down, too.

I knew you'd understand.

Yeah, I'm feeling old

While at the gym yesterday, I heard The Logical Song by Supertramp. It's a great song, one that I still enjoy hearing, and it wasn't until this morning that I realized that it came out in 1979.

That means that the music that I remember being popular when I was growing up is over 25 years old.

I think I need a nap now, and maybe a cardigan. I'm feeling a bit chilly.

A little about Data Mining

I heard a story several years ago about how the military was rethinking it's use of public websites. It turned out that seemingly uinrelated sites could have complementary information that, when put together, could reveal classified information through unclassified sources.

I can't remember if I heard about this before or after 9/11.

But it was little things: troop movements being figured out through individual personnell shifts and logistical changes. It didn't take much, just the ability to connect the dots.

You know, just like we failed to do before 9/11.

The situation gets worse. When I was in the Navy, 1992-1998, I remember that we were not supposed to tell about our movements to anyone we corresponded with. Friends, family, it didn't matter. We could tell them what port we were in, but not where we were going next. But it really didn't matter, because they could tell us. Turns out that the information was readily available, not through the military, but through the media.

So here's my take on the data mining that may or may not have identified the 9/11 terrorists: if we can take a mass of data and find patterns in it, we should. Especially any "open source" data, which in reality, means public data. Because I would hate to think that there might be terrorists out there planning their next move based on Freedom of Information documents, but that our Intelligence agencies can't use Google to find the terrorists.

BTW, you know the whole push to protect people's Social Security Numbers? Did you realize that every member of the United States Armed Forces cannot protect theirs? It's their military serial number. And under current guidelines, it is considered public information.

Sometimes the MSM is just plain stupid

Okay, so the Deseret News is not exactly a bright beacon of the Main Stream Media, but lets face it, any major metropolitan newspaper is eligible.

Background: on Wednesday (Aug 10, for those of you reading this on a Way Back machine), a truck carrying 35,000 lbs of explosives lost control on a narrow canyon highway, and exploded, leaving a 35 foot deep crater. The highway was completely wiped out for a 70-foot length. Yet, miraculously, nobody was killed.

But there had to be a feature piece, a human element article. The Deseret News came up with this:

OREM — The destruction left in the wake of Wednesday's huge explosion in Spanish Fork Canyon liberally injected inconvenience into the daily routines of normal people. And that inconvenience could extend into the weekend.
Price resident Layne Miller is a children's mental health case worker who must travel to Kearns today to visit a client. That trip, usually down U.S. 6, will now be detoured.
"Because of the explosion, I'll either have to go through Huntington Canyon or up to Duchesne," Miller said. "Either way, that's an extra hour tacked onto my traveling time each way."

So a truck explodes, no one is killed, and instead of reporting on all the close calls, or tales of heroism, we get a guy telling us that this is really going to screw up his schedule.

Perhaps, just perhaps, all of our MSM outlets could figure out that all the whining that they tell us is news is really just... a bunch of whiny people. The kind we see all the time. Tell us about the people who transcended all this pettiness! Tell us about those who made a difference!

BTW, the highway in question will be repaired today, Friday, August 12, less than 48 hours after the explosion. Let's hope that Mr. Miller, and all the other normal people, are grateful for the rapid response.

And the article explaining how this happened got it right:

SPANISH FORK CANYON — At midafternoon Thursday, crews were still battling spot fires caused by a massive explosion along U.S. 6.
The 35-foot deep crater in the highway? Nearly filled.
The road will be open this morning, less than 48 hours after the blast occurred.
"I think it's another example of how Utahns can pull together in a crisis situation and make things happen," said Nile Easton, spokesman for the Utah Department of Transportation. "When we get our back up to the wall, we can do amazing things."
About 2 p.m. on Thursday, Easton was standing about a quarter-mile from the blast site, watching as crews hauled dirt up the canyon, dumped it, then removed debris. UDOT officials were first allowed on the site about 4 p.m. on Wednesday. By 10 p.m. Wednesday, crews had begun the tedious process of hauling dirt and removing debris.
Less than 20 hours later, crews were waiting to begin paving operations. In total, about 4,500 tons of gravel were used to fill the crater. About 350 loads were taken up the canyon.
The fact that fill work was nearly done within 24 hours of the explosion, said Easton, is a testament to quick action by volunteers and a joint effort with contractors and the state. When work is completed this morning, it will be permanent, he said.
"What we did is rally the troops from all around the county," said Easton. "We have trucks and crews from Nephi, Eureka, all over Utah County here."

Was the other article really even neccessary?